Twin with Down syndrome selectively aborted during IVF pregnancy

A case study revealed a case in which a woman became pregnant with twins after in vitro fertilization (IVF), but opted to abort one of the babies after tests revealed the baby had Down syndrome.

Key Takeaways:

• Cureus, a medical journal that is part of the Springer Nature group of journals, highlighted a case study involving so-called "selective reduction" in a twin pregnancy.

• Selective reduction is when, during a pregnancy with multiples, one or more of the preborn babies is aborted and the body left in the uterus with the surviving baby or babies.

• In this case, a 38-year-old woman was pregnant with twins after undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) in which one twin had Down syndrome and the other did not.

• The baby with Down syndrome was killed by abortion, and the surviving twin was later born healthy.

The Details:

According to the case study, the woman — a resident of Bosnia and Herzegovina — was underoing IVF for a second time. She had no prior miscarriages, and had previously delivered twins safely via c-section at 36 weeks. Nine years later, at the age of 38, the woman underwent IVF and again became pregnant with dichorionic diamniotic twin boys, meaning each twin had their own placenta and amniotic sac. At 13 weeks, she underwent non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), which revealed a high risk of Down syndrome in Twin B. Three weeks later, she had an amniocentesis, confirming that Twin A was a baby boy with typical chromosomes, and that Twin B was a baby boy with Down syndrome.

It's not clear what the delay was, but at 33 weeks, the woman traveled to Belgrade in Serbia to undergo an abortion. Twin B was killed with a fatal shot of potassium chloride to the heart to cause cardiac arrest, while Twin A was allowed to live. Just five days later, the woman had another c-section performed, with Twin A delivered safe and healthy, along with the body of Twin B.

3rd Trimester Late-Term Abortion | Induction Abortion | What Is Abortion?

Why It Matters:

This case is a disturbing example of how IVF and the fertility industry dehumanize and commodify children. Rather than treating children as actual human beings, the fertility industry and the abortion industry treat them as products to be ordered, designed, created on demand, and destroyed or aborted for not meeting expectations.

Numerous fertility clinics offer eugenics-based screening practices to ensure only the "best" children are created and then born. Human embryos have been turned into jewelry,  fought over, and abandoned in divorce agreements, and even traded among would-be parents, like playing cards.

Other fertility start-ups promise to allow parents to test for hundreds of traits, ensuring children are made to the buyer's exact specifications — like ordering a car from a factory. And when the requested child is deemed defective, as with Twin B in this case, he is killed.

The Bottom Line:

All people have an inherent right to life, including those with disabilities. And children created through IVF are human beings. They are not products to be bought, sold, and destroyed, though that is what the fertility industry is increasingly able to do.